SAN FRANCISCO &emdash; A SET of drastic rule changes
proposed for Monterey County's coast ran into a buzz saw of
opposition this week, leading the staff of the California
Coastal Commission to postpone consideration of the changes
and promise to consult with county officials before bringing
the rules to the commission for adoption later.

The proposed rules, made public the day before
Thanksgiving, would:

prohibit four-laning Highway 1 in North Monterey
County;

declare all native stands of Monterey pine to be
"Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area," triggering
special protection under state law;

limit the amount of desalinated water that can be
supplied to Monterey and other communities;

restrict building on Big Sur parcels that can be seen
from public hiking trails; and,

"where appropriate," require that new development be
evaluated for its impact on views from the ocean.

"I can't understand it and I still don't understand it,"
said supervisor Lou Calcagno, who drafted a letter from the
board to the coastal commission objecting to the way the
rules were devised, what they contain, and the "millions of
dollars of liability" the rules would create for the
county.

"We have to have community input," Calcagno said of the
changes &emdash; in particular, the ban on widening a
dangerous stretch of Highway 1 through his district. Under
current county law, the highway is supposed to be
widened.

Calcagno, who served as a coastal commissioner from 1992
to 1997, also criticized the commission's new rules for
being hastily prepared. The ban on private wells was
probably prepared by "someone not familiar with the law of
groundwater rights," his letter said, while a proposed
rezoning of the land around Elkhorn Slough would do "grave
damage" to the community &emdash; something that could have
been avoided if the commission staff had done a "single
review of the history of Moss Landing."

Calcagno's letter was adopted late Tuesday after being
added to the board of supervisor's agenda on an urgency
basis, said supervisor Dave Potter, who also serves as a
coastal commissioner. "What we want is for the whole thing
to be tabled until the commission's meeting in March in
Monterey, so everybody will have time to prepare," Potter
said.

The next morning, the coastal commission convened at the
Hyatt Regency Embarcadero in San Francisco. Staff members,
apparently surprised at the vehement reaction to their
82-pages of new rules for Monterey County, gave a brief
summary of the changes to the commission but put off any
formal action.

"We will go to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors
in January to provide complete context" for the new rules,
said Dr. Charles Lester, director of the coastal
commission's Santa Cruz office. "For the March meeting,
we'll have a much more focused presentation."

"This is a shocking document," said Angus Jeffers, an
attorney with the Monterey firm, Fenton & Keller. "If
the coastal commission staff wants to continue with it,
they'll have to convene a working group of residents,
environmentalists, elected officials and policy regulators
to keep it grounded in reality."

Big Sur resident Lisa Kleissner said the Coast Property
Owners Association had met several times with coastal
commission staffers on updating land use policies for the
highly scenic area, but that the idea of limiting
development based on views from public trails and the ocean
never arose.

"We are greatly concerned that they did not share these
issues with our group during the intense discussions during
the last five months," she told the coastal commission. She
accused the commission's staff of "inciting a divisive
process."

A member of the Big Sur Land Use Advisory Committee,
Barbara Layne, also said her committee hadn't been consulted
about limiting development based on views from public trails
and the sea.

"People are very concerned about that because it covers
practically everything," Layne said. "There are public
trails everywhere."

Numerous other interviews with Big Sur residents didn't
elicit any comments supporting the proposal for increased
protection of views from trails and the sea. (Development
that can be seen from Highway 1 has been banned in most of
Big Sur for more than 20 years.)

Only Gary Patton, executive director of Monterey County
LandWatch, indicated any support for the plan, which he said
the county should "consider very seriously."

Patton said he thought the idea of "preserving scenic
views from all places where the public is specifically
invited to be makes great sense." But he also said a
comprehensive "viewshed analysis" would be required to
determine the possible benefit of the new rules, and the
possible costs.

"It will be necessary to see whether the more extensive
viewshed protection would make any existing parcel
'unbuildable,' which would then set up a potential takings
claim," Patton said, requiring that the property owner be
compensated.

Under current law, any changes to land use rules in
Monterey County would require the consent of the board of
supervisors. However, when Malibu officials declined to
adopt vast changes for their city demanded by the coastal
commission, the commission convinced the Legislature to
override city officials, putting the changes in place last
year despite their objections.

No date has been set for the presentation by coastal
commission staff members to Monterey County supervisors. The
coastal commission's Monterey meeting, when the rules will
again be considered, will take place March 17-19 at the
Hyatt Regency on Old Golf Course Road, Monterey. The entire
report on changes proposed by the coastal commission staff
to local land use rules can be downloaded from the Internet
at www.coastal.ca.gov/sc/W7a-12-2003.pdf.